Strafford, Vermont, USA (South)
1849 - Strafford

Orange Co. Strafford contains two pleasant villages. The surface is uneven, but the soil is generally good. It is watered by a principal branch of Ompomponoosuc River, which affords several good mill privileges, on which are erected a number of mills and other machinery.

In the north-easterly part is a pond covering about 100 acres, called Podunk Pond, which is a place of considerable resort for amusement and angling.

In the south-east comer of Strafford is an extensive bed of the sulphuret of iron, from which immense quantities of copperas are manufactured.

Strafford Copperas Works. This establishment was formerly styled the Vermont Mineral Factory Company, but is now called the Vermont Copperas Company; the owners, residing chiefly in Boston, having united this with a mine they own in Shrewsbury. It is situated in the extreme southeastern comer of the town, on the east side of a hill, which contains an inexhaustible ridge of the ore, or, technically, sulphuret of iron. This mass of solid rock, in appearance, is usually covered with what miners call the cap, a petrifactive soil of various depths, in which roots, leaves, and limbs of trees, beech-nuts, hazle-nuts, and acorns, are often found turned into stone or iron. There are two factories, each about 267 feet in length by ninety-four in width. These contain eight vats made of lead, ten feet by twelve feet, twenty-one inches in depth and three fourths of an inch in thickness, used for boilers. Lead is the only metal that will endure the operation of the copperas liquor, and this requires constant repair. An unlimited quantity can be made : the facilities for manufacturing being, perhaps, unsurpassed in the world. The copperas made here is used by most of the manufactories of New England, and is sent to all parts of the United States. It is supposed to excel for dyeing purposes any copperas offered in market. The process of making is as follows. The ore is blasted from the bed, by means of powder. It is then broken into pieces with sledges, and afterwards the miners assort and break it up still finer with hammers. It is then thrown into large heaps, where it ignites spontaneously, or fire is sometimes set to it to hasten the process. In this condition it generally bums for the space of two months ; in that time the sulphur is converted into sulphuric acid, and unites itself with the iron, forming sulphate of iron, or copperas. The smoke gives to vegetation, and to all surrounding objects, a sterile and sickly appearance, but the health of the workmen is not affected. These heaps of pyrites being now thoroughly pulverized by fire, are carried to places where water, from a fountain on the summit of a hill, is made to run upon and leach this mass of crude sulphate of iron. The lye is now drawn off into large wooden reservoirs, and thence into the leaden vats as fast as wanted. In these vats the lye or liquor is boiled to a certain strength, tested by acidimeters, and then drained off into wooden vats, where it remains to crystalize. Branches of trees were formerly thrown in, for the crystals to adhere to ; but Mr. Reynolds made an improvement. Pieces of joist three inches square, six feet long, laid across the top of the vats, with holes bored, and round sticks eighteen inches long by three quarters of an inch in diameter, inserted at intervals of about six inches, are now used with great advantage. This makes a great saving of labor, although it has in some measure destroyed the fanciful shapes which the crystals formerly assumed upon some favorite branch ; and the poet, had he been born on copperas hill, would have written, 'as the twig is bent the copperas is inclined.' The crystals are multangular, and of a beautiful transparent green color. These twigs, with specimens varnished, may be seen in the cabinets of many scientific gentlemen in various parts of the country. After crystalization takes place the liquor is drained off, and the copperas is shovelled into the packing rooms. When dry, it is usually put into casks, holding about half a ton each, but frequently into casks of every size.

'The mine was discovered in 1793, by two men who were tapping saptrees. Tradition says they discovered a spontaneous combustion among the leaves, but it is more probable that they found copperas in some wet spot spontaneously formed. The works were first commenced by Mr. Eastman, but were not successfully prosecuted until within about thirty years, when the stock was taken up in Boston by the Messrs. Reynolds and the late energetic Col. Binney. President Monroe visited the works, in his tour in the summer of 1817. In 1827, the company employed from thirty to forty hands to make about the same quantity of copperas they now make with ten hands. A thousand tons of copperas has been made in a year.'

Boundaries. North by Vershire, east by Thetford, south by Sharon, and west by Tunbridge.

First Settlers. The settlement of this town was commenced just before the revolutionary war.

First Ministers. The first meetinghouse was built in town by the Baptists, in 1794, and the second in 1799. The Rev, Joab Young was the first settled minister. He was settled by the Universalists in 1799, and died in 1816.

Productions of the Soil. Wheat, 4,382 bushels : Indian com, 6,640 bushels ; potatoes, 51,634 bushels; hay, 4,909 tons ; maple sugar, 28,485 pounds ; wool, 13.550 pounds.

Distances. Thirty miles south southeast from Montpelier, and eleven southeast from Chelsea.

This town adjoins Thetford, through which the Connecticut River Railroad passes.

A gazetteer of Vermont... by John Hayward Boston - Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason 1849

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